Beowulf 2010
by Nicholas Brimestone
Summary: A modern tale of the legendary hero


John Caine Facility, Nevada

February 19th – 13:08….

The scene opens onto the quaint little military base, in the outer reaches of the scorching Nevada desert. When suddenly an alarm sounds as to warn of the danger to come. Uniformed officers scramble into a large armored room as they prepare for the unknown threat. Sounds similar to large footsteps approach the only door in or out of the room. The soldiers take up their weapons and take aim at the door as the sounds move closer. The sounds move closer, closer, and then suddenly they stop. All is quiet for perhaps a moment or two until a loud crash hits the door. Then another, with each crash the soldiers hold still, ready to unload all their bullets into the hide of the thing on the other side of that door. The crashes continue for another minute or so. Suddenly the doors give way and come off its hinges and flies across the room like a pair of Frisbees. The soldiers begin to fire all they have at the massive creature as it comes at them. The creature leaps at the soldiers and then it all goes black.

Fort Dix, New Jersey

February 19th – 19:48 …

"That was taken six hours ago," states a man sitting behind a desk as he rewinds the video to the sight of the creature on the small monitor. The man's name was General Hubert Grothger; sitting across from him was Colonel Belovarde Wulf, a man with an impressive military record judging from metals on his uniform. "If that happened six hours ago, then why haven't you mounted a rescue squad? We need to go and search for survivors," said Colonel Wulf angrily. "Look at the footage again Wulf, do you really think anyone could survive against that thing?" the General pointed out. "If it was a rescue mission we were mounting, then I would certainly not call someone of your specific talents here!" the General stated with a more serious tone this time, "You and your team are going there to eradicate that creature before it escapes the facility, and reaches a civilian population." Col. Wulf sat up right at the sound of this, "My team has to take on that _thing_!" Wulf shouted as he pointed to the creature on the screen, "…no offense General, but you've lost your mind if you think I'm risking my men on this mission." The General looked at him in a confused yet enraged manner, "You'll take on an international terrorist cell, but you'll ignore a mission on American soil, even if it means losing innocent civilians?" he then said.

"A terrorist cell is one thing…" Wulf said "… but that thing isn't even human as far as I can tell." The General stood up, picked up a file, handed it to the Colonel and said, "I don't care if its human or not, you're going to Nevada with your squad and eradicate that thing, briefing is in twenty minutes!" The Colonel open his mouth as to say something, but decided against it. He turned to the door and opened it halfway before asking, "What's that thing's anyway?" General acted on this question, looked at the file, and said "

Experiment number 24598 Code Name: _Grendel_".

Fort Dix Briefing Room,

February 19th – 20:08…

"All right everyone is here?" asked the General, looking at the twenty or so men sitting in front of him in a semi-circle fashion. The General cleared his throat, and stated "Alright, now Colonel Wulf has already given his complaints so I don't want any from the lot of you. Now what you are about to do is top secret, so I don't want any thing flashy, this is a simple search and kill mission. The location is the Cain Research Facility, a laboratory complex in Nevada built for research into _biological technology_. Also known as biotechnology, as to say machines made of living cells, like how the human brain is the most powerful supercomputer in the world."

Some of the men were about to ask questions, but the General ignored them and continued, "The facility is run by Dr. Elizabeth Grend, a real brainiac about living machines and all that. The facility was originally built for the purpose of finding a way of cloning independent organs to replace ones riddled with cancer, like the heart. What we didn't know…" the General said as he turned on the video "…is that the good doctor had gone Mrs. Frankenstein and began research into biological weapons." The General stopped the video when the image of the creature appeared. "We may have never had known…" General stated as he pointed to the screen, "…if one of her_ little_ science projects hadn't escaped and tripped the emergency alert and automatic defense system."

The men murmured as they looked at the screen, clearly wishing to voice their complaints about going off to fight a monster. The General clicked a button and another screen came on. This one had what looked like a copy of the file the General had. "This was what we could collect from the facility's computer before it crashed…" said the General, "…memorize it, it may be the only thing that will keep you alive on this mission." The men stopped talking and began to read and were amazed at what it said. Col. Wulf also began to read what the file had to say, and realized that it was a journal entry belonging to Dr. Grend with dates going two months ago. It read:

_December 12_

_Journal Entry 25 _

_At last, after so many months, our first specimen that could survive without the need of a life-support system has been created. The monster will be named Grendel after myself of course. The creature appears to have traits from several animal species that we introduced in the serum but does not process human level intelligence. This will make it easier for us to control it for combat use. It was ingenious of me to use human DNA and RNA as a base for the creature's genetic code, without it the experiments would never be able to adapt to the environment. _

_December 26_

_Journal Entry 39 _

_The creature appears to be somewhat aggressive, but this is understandable considering its low intelligence. The creature is gaining in speed and agility as it adapts to its body. I was somewhat worried that it may try something while the scientist and myself are away for Christmas, but it appears that the creature just sat in its cage the whole time. _

_ January 8_

_Journal Entry 52 _

_The education program for the Grendel is going well; soon he will be ready for combat training. I cannot wait until this discovery is made public, I'll go down in history as the single greatest scientist in the history of genetics. A funny thing has started to happen, one of the scientist told me that I've began to refer to Grendel by his name. I have also begun to refer to Grendel as he instead of it. I guess this what happens when you're working with a living experiment. _

_January 17_

_Journal Entry 61_

_Combat Training begins tomorrow; I don't know what is causing me so unrest. Perhaps I just don't want to lose such a prime specimen when we've come this far. _

_ January 23 _

_Journal Entry 67_

_Grendel is doing very well, I'm actually starting to think that he may be smarter then we believe. It doesn't matter anyway, because soon we'll have an army of these his kind under our control._

_February 10_

_Journal 85_

_We've ended training for now, so that we may install a harder training course for Grendel. This is the third time this month that we've had to change the course. Grendel's learning ability is amazing, almost super-human in fact. Soon Grendel will be the greatest fighting force there is._

The Journal ended there and replaced with a video of earlier today. It showed a woman in her late twenties, that Wulf guessed to be Dr. Grend. She had blonde hair, aqua blue eyes, and would have been very beautiful if it wasn't for that terrified expression on her face. Dr. Grend was trying to record a message, in it she said, "The creature has just escaped! It was much smarter then it lead us to believe. I don't know how much longer I have before he finds m-…" There was a crash and Dr. Grend turned in the direction of the sound. She backed out of the frame, until all that anyone could see was her shadow. A large figure walked past the screen, and Dr. Grend began to scream "NOOOOOO! You can't do this to me. I created you, I'm your mother, and I created yo-…" then there was a noise that sounded like a splat. Nobody had to say a word; they knew that was the end of Dr. Grend.

The General turned off the screen, turned towards the men and said, "Now that you understand what we're facing here is there anyone doesn't want to go?" But nobody said anything, as if to act as a sign that they agreed to face the creature. Then the General said, "If there are no questions, then suit and get ready to head to Nevada. You leave in one hour."

February 20th

Outside the Cain Facility – 01:48….

"This is ridiculous, why are we up at nearly one in the morning and about to go after some monster?" The military carrier had just landed and one of the men was obviously unhappy about the mission. "I'm just going to say this once, we're all going to die!" the solider said. "Then stay in the plane!" said Wulf "The last thing I need is some cry-baby following me around a creepy research facility!" But the soldier didn't return to the plane, as did any of the others. Although they also weren't jumping for joy about this mission either. Before they went in the General held them back for a second and told them, "We've been able to gain access to the computer inside. The facility's security cameras are shot, but we've been able to gain access to the heat-detection system. So we should be able to track both you and the creature using the body heat that's generated." While not completely reassuring, the soldiers did realize this gave them a slight advantage over the creature.

The Colonel gathered his men and told them the battle plan, "Okay we've been able to locate the creature to a room in western side of the facility. We're going to split into two groups, Group A will move in from the north side of the facility and Group B will go in from the south side." After organizing the two groups, Colonel said, "Squad 13, MOVE OUT!"

February 20th

Inside the Northern Section of the Cain Facility – 02:04….

All was quiet as Colonel Wulf and his group entered the facility. When they saw the bodies of two men, the Colonel said, "Take the dog-tags from the soldiers and the security-badges from the scientist to help identify who was killed." The soldiers did as he said and began to collect the dog tags and security-badges, and by the time they reached a quarter of the way there, they had collected over of them. "It's a real mess down here General," said Wulf on the radio, "How many people were in this place anyway?" The General responded almost immediately, "Nearly three hundred personnel were being stationed here."

Twenty minutes later Wulf and his team got a message from the General, "Wulf! We're picking up heat signatures in the room ahead of you." The Colonel and his men looked around until they saw a room on the right. The sign on the door said MORGUE, the Colonel looked at his men and then said on the radio, "General, I swear if this turns into a zombie attack I AM QUITING!" Wulf and his men moved slowly to the door, and very carefully opened it.

"Oh Thank Goodness!" The Colonel and his men were surprised, to find not zombies, but survivors. "What's going on here?" asked the Col. to one of the survivors, and a young girl came up to him. "When we heard the alarm go off, we knew that creature Dr. Grend created had escaped. So we tried to escape, but when we heard the soldiers shooting we sealed ourselves in here." After hearing the story the Colonel contacted the General and told him about the survivors. "All right…" said the Colonel., "…my men are going to escort you outside." The survivors did as they were told and followed the soldiers into the darkness in the direction of the exit. Alone, the Colonel called the other group, but all there he could hear was white noise. The Colonel listened for another minute or so, the suddenly he heard a thud. The sound came from ahead of him, and around the corner.

The Colonel. moved closer and closer towards the direction of the sound. With every step he could feel his heart racing at forty beats per second. He readied his gun, and quickly turned the corner. But no person or thing was there; then the Colonel. felt a slimy feeling on his shoulder and he looked up. There he Colonel B. Wulf stood as he stared into the merciless eyes of a revolting creature as it attached itself to the ceiling with its claws. The only thing the Col. could say as the creature came at him was "Oh,! #!' The monster landed on him, knocking the Col. to the ground, hitting his head, and losing grip of the weapon. The Col.'s head was spinning from the concussion he probally got when he hit his head. The creature was sniffing him getting ready to tear him to shreds. The Col. was feeling for a gun, _any_ gun, until he a felt a 9mm on the ground. He grasped the gun and shoved it into the creature's mouth, getting cut from the creature's struggling, and unloaded the whole cartridge into the creature skull. The creature stopped moving, breathing, and fell to the floor dead.

February 20th

Outside the Cain Facility – 02:48….

"Ow!" screamed the Colonel as a Medic was bandaging him. The General came over and said, "We just got a report from inside, turns out the section where group Beta was in was shielded and were out of radio contact. They didn't even know the creature was dead until they were back in radio range." The Colonel signed with relief knowing his men were all safe. "General…" said the Colonel., "…if you ever send us on a mission like that again" I WILL SHOOT YOU!"

_Three Years Later…_

_The events of the Cain Facility became public knowledge, resulting _

_in an investigation of the U.S. Military and their projects._

_However, one person received a very special award from the people for his deeds…_

July 8th

Oval Office, White House, Washington D.C. – 13:59…

It was the afternoon, when President Wulf received the monthly report from the artic sector. He told his security, "Miss Donnson, tell General Grothar, he and I are off to the Artic."

July 8th

Somewhere over the Artic Circle – 15:32…

"Why exactly are we going to the coldest place in the world, to look at a couple of test-tubes?" The General was obviously unhappy with the idea of being in the Artic. "One, because the idea to continue the research Dr. Grend started was _your_ idea…." Said the President, "…and two, because if one of those things escapes, you'll need an expert monster killer." This wasn't completely true; Wulf was actually going for some excitement. Since becoming President, life became quite boring for him. "Sir…" said the pilot, "…we'll be landing in twenty minutes.

The plane landed quite smoothly as it arrived at its destination; the President and the General were freezing as they exited the plane. "You never take me anywhere nice!" joked the General as they entered the facility. "Mr. President, General." Said the head scientist, "…Welcome to the middle of nowhere." They were lead through the facility until they came the room in the report. "I think you'll like what we've prepared for you" said the scientist as he opened the door. The men looked up at the sight of it, an 8ft, brown scaled, leather-winged lizard in a cage. "Well?" asked the scientist, "What do you think?" The President looked at it closely, turned, and said, "Dr. Grend, eat your heart out." Suddenly the lizard attacked, carving its claws into the President's back! The General grabbed him as the President fell screaming, "Wulf! Wulf! Wuuuuuuullllllllffffffffff!"

_President Wulf died that day._

_His Vice-President, James Wilgaf took his position,_

_On His Tombstone It read out:_

"_Here Lies Belovarde Wulf,_

_Lived A Warrior, Died A Leader"_

The End


End file.
